The State-owned airport operator Airport Authority of India (AAI)
has accomplished the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to
reinforce skill development efforts in the Indian aviation industry with
National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and National Skill
Development Fund (NSDF).

As part of the newly signed tripartite agreement, these three
entities will collaborate for skill development initiatives involving
the aviation sector.

Adhering to the MoU, the AAI has made pledge for Rs 5.25 crore in
CSR funds for the NSDF together with commitments for land and premises
to facilitate establishment of skill development centres in India.

The NSDF CEO Rajesh Agarwal has signed the MoU along with the NSDC
CEO Jayant Krishna and AAIs Director for India Aviation Academy Rajiv
Goel in a formal deal signing ceremony.

The ritual has also been attended by the Union Minister for Civil
Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Union Minister of State for Skill
Development and Entrepreneurship and Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Pratap
Rudy.

On the strategic alliance, Minister Raju stated, "As we gear
up for a new civil aviation policy, for new avenues that aviation will
open up for economic growth of the country, for more new airports, and
existing ones becoming active; there has to be a large part of our
strategy towards sourcing skilled workforce to make all our plans
successful. Our plans can be the most well thought out plans, but we
need trained and certified people to execute those plans. Any vibrant
program needs a skilled workforce."

The Civil Aviation Minister added, "Our partnership with
Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship through this MoU
signing between AAI, NSDC and NSDF will certainly help us ready that
workforce from right now. In this way, we are investing back into our
sector's and the country's brighter future."

Mr. Rudy has expressed his delight over this contribution made by
the aviation industry, and added, "The Aviation Sector has seen
some good traction in the skill ecosystem. It is estimated that by 2035,
the Indian Civil Aviation sector would employ 8 to 10 lakh personnel
directly and another 3 lakh indirectly. To cater to this requirement, we
introduced a new Sector Skill Council exclusively for preparing a job
ready workforce for the Aerospace & Aviation Sector, last
year."

He also stated, "We have skilled more than 1.04 crore youth
last year in 2015-16 which is an incremental growth by 36.8 per cent
from the previous year. With contributions like these we are certain
that we will be able to bring speed and scale along with standards to
skill initiatives in the nation."

Addressing the gathering at the event, the MSDE Secretary Rohit
Nandan disclosed, "Skill India is the largest human resource
exercises that has ever happened till now and it is imperative that we
together develop a vision for convergence across all stakeholders in the
country to achieve this goal of skilling 40.2 crore people in the
country."